The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1887-06-07
ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION.
A Number of Ioexplicable British Pecal-
iarities.

iarities.
In the obituary notices which the
death of the Duke of Somerset called
forth curious diversity in the spelling
of the family name was noticeable. The
old Duke, plain, rough-tongued, un-
destinations man, spelled it Seymour;
the new Duke, who himself is seventy
five years old, writes it st. Maur. And
as the old brothers disagreed on this
point so the nephews of the present
duke differ, for there is among them a
Lord Algernon st. Maur and a Lord
Edward Seymour. When members of
the family are themselves of two opin-
ions it would be temerity indeed for a
plebeian outsider to attempt to deter
mine the right of the thing. Apparently
the original name was Norman, and
the family harks back to q William de
st. Maur. who held lands in Monmouth
under Henry III. But three genera
tons afterward. in the time of Edward
ILL.,, the head of the house wrote himself
If, indeed, he knew how to write at
all-Roger Seymour. This name they
bore with them when, in Tudor times,
they emerged from obscurity by lucky
chance, gained court favor, fattened
themselves on church lands, and finally,
from the pinnacle of the Lord Protector
ship, gained the right to sniff at all the
other families of England, barring only
the Towards. Indeed, am not sure
that this exception ought to be made.
for although the Dukes of Norfolk
148S) antedated the Dukes of Somer.
set by some sixty-four years, it is WELL
known that Howard is a corruption of
the excessively commonplace Saxon
name Hogward, while now that Sey-
mour is spelled St. Maur, there can be
no manner of doubt about its Norman
blue-bloodedness. OF course, it is true
that vulgar tongues corrupted the name
for something over five centuries; but,
thank Heaven, it has been restored now,
and we can all breathe easier
The name will continue, however, to
be pronounced Seymour, just as st.
John is called Sinjun, and st.
Leger is spoken Sillinger. Alas! we
did not all know this last until lately
at least the reporters in The Commons
gallery didn't-and when the aristo-
cratic Marquis of Harrington spoke of
the correspondents who had been killed
in the Soudan, one of whom was named
st. Leger, the papers next morning all
had it Sillinger. But notthat we know
what fashion demands in the matter of
orthoepy it shall never happen again.
Sometime / am going to make
whole book about the funny things in
English pronunciation. Everybody
knows about Majoribanks being Marsh
banks. and Cholmondeley being Chum-
ley, and Levison-Gower being Lewson-
Gore. These are stock samples familiar
to all. Most people know, too, that
the Norman names of Belvoir and Beau
champs are pronounced Beaver and
Beecham, while the equally Norman
name of Grosvenor retains its French
sound. But these are only sign-posts
on the road to a general knowledge of
the subject When you get to know why
Boughton is pronounced Bawton, while
HoughtOn has the long o, why Wemys
should be Weems, and Knollys should
be Knowles, you will be getting on in
the mastery of the subject. But there
are no rules. Some words like Pail Mall,
which is pronounced pell nell. retain
the sound of foreign origin after they
have lost its form. But, then, the word
mall, meaning path. is pronounced NAL,
and as they both came from the old
French game of paille maille, it may be
seem that the Englishman disdains mere
laws of analogy. He says Rumsted
when he refers to Rothamstead, but he
pronounces Southampton ont fully
and clearly. In London, too, he has
dialect of his own. He says clark, but
the rest of England says clerk. He
turns all his long as into long is, say
ing dyly pyper instead of daily paper,
but the country people do not But,
then, he says Hereford, while the na-
tives of that shire call it Hartford